Women of Promise

       Ephesians 5:25 is the passage that most women get excited to hear taught. Their thoughts go something like this: "Yes!! This is how my husband should be. He NEEDS to hear this!! Preach it, Pastor!"    Today I wanted to share something from this passage that was convicting for me, as a woman.  I want to look at the last part of verse 25. just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her     Yes, this verse is directed at instructing the men to love their brides as Jesus loves, but I was led to think for a bit on the magnitude of how much Christ loved the church.  It was so much that He gave His life for her! He LOVES the church! The church is His Bride. There are many more evidences of this in Scripture.      Thinking about another verse brought me to my knees again. Romans 8:29 tells us that God called us to be "conformed into the image of His Son."  In other words, if we are born again, we should be ...

       A favorite Bible story of mine, as a child, was the story of Naaman. This short story is found in 2 Kings chapter 5.  I was pointed to meditate on Naaman's wife's servant girl this past week in a book. This little girl is memorialized in the Bible for speaking one sentence. What an impact that one, small act of faith made on all of History!     This girl is "young" from the description we are given in 2 Kings 5:2. She was taken captive by "bands of raiders from Aram" and ended up as a servant girl to Naaman's wife. Naaman was the commander of the army for the king of Aram. I cannot imagine the fear and trauma that this girl endured as she was ripped from her home by strangers. Who knows what all she was subjected to during that event? All we know is that she had faith that Elisha could heal Naaman. Despite the fact that Naaman was her captor, she had compassion and desired to help him. She speaks up and says, "I wish my master would go see th...

            Trusting God is a lesson we must learn over and over again. He forces us to rely on Him in so many aspects of our lives, because He knows that when we finally realize that He is the one in control, we can find the peace and joy that He longs to give us.  As long as we are trying to "fix" things on our own, or trusting in our own strength, we miss out in that true fulfillment that comes from complete rest in the Creator of everyone and everything.      Finances is one area that we can more easily see this concept at work.  Recognizing that our daily bread comes from the hand of God maintains our focus on stewardship of His resources, as our pastor has been teaching us this month. This is an area in which He demands complete surrender and trust.      The areas in which I have been challenged with most recently are trusting God with my time management and  Mount Everest -sized "to do list". Sometime...

       Our bodies need a variety of nutrients to operate well.  A diet consisting of only fruit would not be very good for anyone's health -- even though fruit is a delicious and healthy food that God has given us to enjoy and use. A baby may drink only milk for a time, but it needs something more substantial as it grows. As we learn more about how our individual bodies function, we learn how important it is to eat at least something from most of the different food groups. Each one provides essential vitamins, protein, fiber, or cell-building elements that help our bodies operate as God intended. Children tend to have a few select foods that they will eat, but most expand that selection as they grow (some more than others!!). If we are convinced of the vital importance of a certain food, often we can even develop a taste or desire for it that we may not naturally have.      This analogy applies to the Word of God. The whole Bible is God's Word and...

     Everything worth having requires effort.  Healthy bodies, healthy marriages, or healthy lifestyles   do not just happen without intentionality, work, and cultivation. The same is true of a deep relationship with Christ.  It requires a focused, intentional effort on our part to start and maintain a lifestyle of learning and loving Him. While all of our salvation is secured in Christ, and His work only, there is an element of our faith that requires us to act.        Revelation 2:1 speaks of the church at Ephesus and commends them for their patient endurance and not growing weary in the work of the Lord.  This tells us that living out the calling of the gospel in our lives is not always easy!  Now, all along the way God offers us His strength and tremendous blessing.  We will see the benefits of this effort!  However, the church at Ephesus was doing all the right things, but had lost their "first love."  ...

       Life is so uncertain. We never know what is going to be thrown at us. All the self-help or parenting books in the world, cannot truly prepare you for that feeling  that comes when you actually experience an event. The truth is that all of us experience anxiety, fear, grief, and sorrow.  It is part of our fallen nature. Adam and Eve did not know fear or anxiety until they disobeyed in the Garden. Ever since, humanity has been crippled with the effects of sin, deeply imbedded in each heart from birth.      Satan has so many lies that he wants us to believe.  One such lie is that we will always be controlled by our fears and anxiety. He wants us to think that we will always be consumed by grief.  He wants us to believe that God is not enough.  Somehow, someway, we have to do something or find some magic potion that will help us "snap" out of our circumstances and finally have joy, money, and satisfaction.  These are ju...

   Happy New Year!      I hope you have had a wonderful time of rest and fellowship with your family and friends over the past week or two as we have celebrated the birth of Jesus and welcomed in the new year.      As we embarq on a new (or old) set of goals and resolutions for 2026, I came across a really fascinating tidbit of information I wanted to share with you.     Apparently, in Hebrew, every fiftieth letter in the book of Genesis spells out the Hebrew word for Torah. The Torah is the term for the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Books of the Law.  So the very first letter is Tav, 49 letters later is Vav, 49 letters later you will find Reish, and 49 letters later you will find Heh.  Putting those Hebrew letters together is the TORH, or in English, Torah.       This is exactly the same in the book of Exodus!! Starting with the first letter of the book, and moving by groups of 50, you wi...